Have you noticed how a change of season quietly shifts how you feel? The light changes, the temperature drops or lifts, and suddenly the routine that worked beautifully three months ago doesn't quite fit any more. Most of us push on with it anyway and then wonder why it's become such hard work.
I'd like to offer you a different approach. Rather than fighting the seasons, use them. Each turn of the year is a natural checkpoint — a built-in prompt to ask what's actually serving you and what you've picked up without meaning to.
Autumn is for letting go
Watch a deciduous tree in autumn and it tells you exactly what the season is for. It drops what it no longer needs so it can rest through winter and be ready to grow again in spring.
So the autumn question is simple: what do I want to let go of? What habit crept in over summer that isn't doing me any favours? And then winter becomes what it's meant to be — a period to rejuvenate and restore so you arrive at spring with actual energy rather than running on fumes.
Spring flips it. Spring is renewal, not release. It's warmer, the days stretch out, and it's the natural time to get back outdoors and introduce something new rather than subtract something old. If you've been in a sort of hibernation, spring is your cue to come out of it.
What I'm letting go of, and how
My own autumn change is coffee. I want to be clear about why, because it isn't about abstinence or punishing myself. I enjoy coffee. I don't drink it to wake up — I drink it purely because I like it. I'm dropping it because I want to take my sleep to the next level.
Over summer I worked through a book on sleep, and the thing that landed hardest was how much caffeine interferes with it. Through the day you build up a compound called adenosine, which creates your sleep pressure — that genuine, welcome heaviness that makes falling asleep easy. Caffeine blocks that build-up. And caffeine has a long half-life, roughly six to eight hours before even half of it has cleared, so a morning coffee can still be in your system at bedtime, particularly if you're sensitive to it.
Here's the part I'd most like you to take away though: I'm not just removing it. I'm replacing it with green tea. If you take away something you genuinely enjoy and leave a gap, the gap usually wins. So substitute rather than subtract. Green tea still has some caffeine, but considerably less, and it contains L-theanine, which has been studied for its calming and sleep-supporting effects.
The sleep routine that changed things for me
The other lesson from that book was consistency: same time to bed, same time to wake, every day. I've been strict about it, and I've gone further — I've shifted my whole wind-down an hour earlier.
I used to start getting ready for bed at 9pm, hoping to be asleep by 10. Now I start at 8pm. By 9pm I'm genuinely sleepy, and I'm usually asleep between 9 and 9.30. That one change has given me an extra half hour to an hour of sleep most nights, before I've even dropped the coffee.
What happens at 8pm? I wind the lighting down. Screens go off, because blue light suppresses melatonin, the hormone that helps initiate sleep. I turn off the overhead lights and find moonlight is usually enough to move around the house — though please keep enough light to be safe, I don't want anyone tripping over the furniture in the name of better sleep. Then it's a shower, some stretching, a bit of work with a foam roller, and emptying my head onto paper: anything unresolved, anything for tomorrow. I finish by thinking about what I'm grateful for.
One note on consistency if your week is uneven: anchor your sleep and wake times to the days you have to be somewhere. Don't treat your free days as a chance to sleep in — that's the fastest way to undo the whole thing.
Eating with the season rather than against it
A lot of people tell me they eat well all day and then unravel in the evening. If that's you, I'd gently suggest the evening isn't really the problem.
Two things usually sit underneath it. The first is unmanaged stress arriving home with you. The second — and this is the one people miss — is simply not eating enough earlier in the day. Your body needs its macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats and protein. When it senses it's short on any of them, it sends hunger signals. Hunger isn't a weakness to be overridden. It's useful information telling you something is missing.
What I see most often is a day that's effectively a famine followed by an evening that's a feast, especially with carbohydrates. I'd flip that. Weight your carbohydrates towards the earlier part of the day, when you're actually using the fuel, and ease off later when you need less. Spread your protein evenly instead — roughly 20 to 25 grams at each of your three main meals is a useful working target for most people. And get good fats in consistently: nuts, seeds, olive oil, avocado, coconut.
None of this is about eating less. It's about eating enough, at the times your body can actually use it.
Adjusting movement and connection
As the days shorten, your exercise plan needs to shorten with them, or at least move. That might mean a gym membership, something indoors, or shifting your training to the middle of the day when it's warmer and lighter. The key is deciding it's non-negotiable before the weather decides for you. If your lunchtime is the only workable window, block it out and defend it — no meetings.
And don't let the good habits you've built in one season quietly disappear when your circumstances change. Carry them across deliberately.
I'd add one more area that gets overlooked in a seasonal reset: your relationships. The change here can be as small as giving a bit more. Offering your seat to someone who needs it more. Letting a car merge. Actually giving way to the pedestrian instead of sneaking through. Letting someone ahead of you in a queue. It costs nothing and it reorients you towards other people, which is where a surprising amount of wellbeing lives.
Gratitude is what makes that easier, which is why it's in my evening routine. Once you start looking for things to be grateful for at night, you start noticing them during the day, and you start acknowledging the small things people do for you. It compounds.
Give a smile to a stranger, too. I smile so much walking around that I get smiles back from people I've never met, and I sometimes wonder why until I remember I'm wearing a permanent grin. It genuinely shifts your physiology. It's hard to feel flat while you're smiling — try it right now and see.
Key takeaways
- Treat each change of season as a scheduled review of your habits rather than something to push through.
- Autumn is for letting go; spring is for introducing something new. Match your effort to the season.
- Substitute, don't just subtract — replace what you give up with something you'll actually look forward to.
- Protect a consistent bed and wake time, and start winding down earlier than you think you need to.
- Front-load your carbohydrates, spread protein across all three meals, and eat enough during the day.
- Move your training indoors or earlier before the shorter days quietly erase it.
- Add one small act of giving and one moment of gratitude to your day. Both are free.
Working with the seasons, not against them
What I love about this approach is that it asks very little of you. You're not overhauling your life. You're making one or two deliberate changes at a moment when your body is already primed for change — and that's precisely why they tend to stick.
This is the heart of how we work at me&my wellness. Your sleep, your food, your movement, your stress and your relationships aren't separate projects. They're one system, and the seasons give you four natural opportunities a year to tune it. Pick the one thing you've been meaning to address, and let this change of season be the reason you finally do.
Want to go deeper on this? Book a free 30-minute discovery call with Anthony at meandmywellness.com.au